Here
you are looking at CC Winstone 2000 numbers versus
the MSI MS-6337 (or i815E Pro) for reference, at
the same clock speed. The MSI board barely
edges out the SAR6 with ATA100 for the drive
subsystem but the SAR6 takes more of a commanding
lead when the RAID 0 configuration is used.
This was to be expected of course.

ZD
Winbench 99 Version 1.1

The
Winbench scores paint a somewhat different
picture. When compared to the MSI board, the
SA6R in ATA100 mode is pretty much neck and neck,
in many of the tests, with its competitor.
However, the CPU scores are a notch or two above
the MSI board which can probably be attributed to
the slightly more aggressive timing of the SA6R,
that we spoke of earlier. On the other
hand, the Business Disk Winmarks for the SA6R's
ATA100 setup are off quite a bit from the MSI
board's scores. We set up our test multiple
times with the same result and we may have to
chalk this up to a test anomaly, so take those
numbers with a grain of salt. On the other
hand, the SA6R with a the RAID 0 setup scored
extremely well and bested the other two score sets
by a wide margin. If you have the dough to
shell out for an extra ATA100 hard drive or even
an ATA66 drive ( it supports both in RAID O mode
), the RAID setup is the ONLY way to fly.
The performance is that good.

And
we'll close the testing with a round of our
favorite First Person Shooter...

Coupled
with a GeForce2 Ultra and a P3-933, the SA6R makes
for one butt kicking Quake3 rig! However,
since the folks at Abit are into over-clocking
things, we might as well take it up a notch with
them.

These
are 32 bit color "High Quality" setting
scores. When a 1.1GHz. P3 is driving the
GeForce 2 Ultra on this motherboard, things sure
do look sweet.

Let's
recap and call it a day...

We are
going to struggle with this one. It is only
on rare occasion that we are this pleased with a
product, especially something as complex as a
motherboard. There is always some small fly
in the ointment that gets in the way of
greatness. However, the SA6R is a board that
will rate with us as darn close to perfect for the
current technology available on the market
today. We would have liked to give it a
perfect "10" score but perfection is a
VERY tall order.

On the
other hand, there were very few down sides to this
board. They are minor things like ATX Power
connector location and the fact that the extra
cost involved with the i815E Chipset's integrated
Graphics Controller, is pretty much a waste of
silicon for most entertainment and gaming
orientated consumers. Beyond that, this
board is so far the most stable i815E board we
have tested to date and its performance clock for
clock is best of class. Furthermore, the
addition of the integrated High Point RAID
controller will bring new levels of Drive
Sub-system performance to many users who, until
now, haven't explored the benefits of RAID arrays.

We're
giving the Abit SA6R a Hot Hardware Heat Meter
Rating of...

We're
also giving it the coveted "Editor's Choice
Award" because it is in my personal box at
this very moment.